BAD Problems with Asus Mobos

[Steve]

In the past 3 months I have seen 5 Asus mobos die. In the 10 years before
then I have only seen ONE fail. All of the boards were either the P4P800-SE
(3), the P4P800 Deluxe (2), or the newer P5GD2 Deluxe (1) mobos. All,
except one, are used for AutoCAD workstations and use ATI 9600 or 9800 video
cards. At first I thought that the problem must have been a bad power
supply, then a bad video card, then a bad hard drive...then memory. Now, I
realize that these boards have serious problems. First, I've noticed a
couple of things about all of the boards that did not apply to all of the
other Asus boards that I've purchase/installed over the years (about 100 or
so).

1) The newer boards all use the "AI" bios and ALL of them seem to run very
hot
2) The newer boards are no longer made in Taiwan, but in China

Now, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that these boards have failed
when being used heavily. That is, they are processing huge data files in
AutoCAD and/or gaming. My gut tells me that perhaps the switching voltage
regulators are failing, or something else is overheating and failing. I'm
certain that it is an overheating type of issue due to the way the boards
are dying. They all usually lock up after being run for a while...then they
simply refuse to boot when the power button is pushed.

I have RMA'd boards until I'm sick and now have decided to go with Intel
boards due to their build quality since these are mission-critical machines.

My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with Asus
boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and while it works,
it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot leaving me with a blank
screen. Keep in mind that these are 4 different computers that I've
referred to, and all use high-quality Sparkle or Antec power supplies and
high-end memory as well as other good components. The ONLY similarity in all
of them is that they are using ASUS mainboards.

One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it immediately
ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and that's been 6 months
ago.

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've been
using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.

Thanks for listening....

-Steve

 

[Daniel Mandic]

My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with
Asus boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and
while it works, it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot
leaving me with a blank screen. Keep in mind that these are 4
different computers that I've referred to, and all use high-quality
Sparkle or Antec power supplies and high-end memory as well as other
good components. The ONLY similarity in all of them is that they are
using ASUS mainboards.

Hi Steve!

No, I have no experience with P4 Boards. But your troubles might been a
capacitor fault. I have resoldered some capacitors on AMD Athlon Boards
(KT133A). Usually the capcitors (4700uF) near the AGP are drying out
very quickly, bez its very hot there and the cap itself heats, too.
Biggest problem is, when the capacitor is totally finished, it may make
a short circuit and damage the MB.
On the other Hand, when the cap cannot collect the specified power
anymore the MB hangs. Caps have a short live compared to other
electronic elements, also high quality caps (2-10 Years). Cheap or bad
one can break after some month of heavy use.

Certainly cheap caps!

One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it
immediately ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and
that's been 6 months ago.

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now
and would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have
experienced similar problems. I will never use another Asus board
again, and I've been using them and recommending them for the past 11
years.

Thanks for listening....

-Steve

Please!



Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[Richard Gnutered]

its just you buddy.


you got a serious problem in your setup somewhere. like maybe your house
electrical wiring is messed up

 

[BP]

Yes, I had a P4C800E Deluxe die recently. Asus RMA'ed a rebuilt replacement
but I have not used it. I needed my system back up fast and had immediate
access to an Intel 865PERL which is what I'm using now with all the old
parts. Can't bring myself to put the P4 back in.
Very shortly afterward I had my ASUS Radeon 9800 Pro video card fail (fans).
I just received word this morning that it has been shipped from RMA. But the
replacement ATI 9200 has been working just fine for the last 6 weeks.
A $500 lesson. Wanna buy some slightly used Asus parts?
I suspect that it has more to do with the "10 pounds of potatoes in a 5
pound bag" syndrome. These boards have got every feature you can have at the
moment. When they work they are the balls. But the more "moving" parts in
any machine....
Now throw in cheap parts.

 

[Steve]

Like to believe this Richard, but this is in a business where there are 20
other computers running...without a problem. In addition, every computer
has it's own APC UPS for protection. Btw, the other 20 are using Asus
boards that are made in Taiwan.

-Steve


its just you buddy.


you got a serious problem in your setup somewhere. like maybe your house
electrical wiring is messed up

 

[Peacekeeper]

its just you buddy.


you got a serious problem in your setup somewhere. like maybe your house
electrical wiring is messed up

Interestingly my P4p800S-E did a similiar failure 3 weeks ago. Was
transferring large files over network to this Pc and it locked up solid .
Only way to get back was a restart and then it locked up in the reboot.

Finally found out that resetting bios allowed windows boot to complete but
it was still very unstable. Replacing battery no help I felt that the bios
chip got corrupted as even a bios flash made no change. even locked up
within the bios .

I replaced the board and all fine now.

the board was not under warranty as was a freebee from asus.(long story).

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

In the past 3 months I have seen 5 Asus mobos die. In the 10 years before
then I have only seen ONE fail. All of the boards were either the
P4P800-SE
(3), the P4P800 Deluxe (2), or the newer P5GD2 Deluxe (1) mobos. All,
except one, are used for AutoCAD workstations and use ATI 9600 or 9800
video
cards. At first I thought that the problem must have been a bad power
supply, then a bad video card, then a bad hard drive...then memory. Now,
I
realize that these boards have serious problems. First, I've noticed a
couple of things about all of the boards that did not apply to all of the
other Asus boards that I've purchase/installed over the years (about 100
or
so).

1) The newer boards all use the "AI" bios and ALL of them seem to run
very
hot
2) The newer boards are no longer made in Taiwan, but in China

Now, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that these boards have failed
when being used heavily. That is, they are processing huge data files in
AutoCAD and/or gaming. My gut tells me that perhaps the switching voltage
regulators are failing, or something else is overheating and failing. I'm
certain that it is an overheating type of issue due to the way the boards
are dying. They all usually lock up after being run for a while...then
they
simply refuse to boot when the power button is pushed.

I have RMA'd boards until I'm sick and now have decided to go with Intel
boards due to their build quality since these are mission-critical
machines.

My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with Asus
boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and while it
works,
it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot leaving me with a blank
screen. Keep in mind that these are 4 different computers that I've
referred to, and all use high-quality Sparkle or Antec power supplies and
high-end memory as well as other good components. The ONLY similarity in
all
of them is that they are using ASUS mainboards.

One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it immediately
ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and that's been 6 months
ago.

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've
been
using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.

Thanks for listening....

-Steve

A motherboard cannot run "hot". You were running P4 procs on those boards,
and the procs supported by those boards run at temps just below the temp at
the surface of the sun. I would surmise that your problems were related
directly to inadequate cooling. the ASUS boards you cited are very stable,
rock solid boards when implemented in a well cooled environment.

Bobby

 

[Steve]

Bobby, I thought at one point that the problem HAD to be the processor so I
RMA'd the cpu back to Intel and they sent me a brand new one. Four weeks
later the board blew up again. I've changed EVERY component in that one
system at least once. Airflow is exceptional with 3 exhaust fans (2 in the
PS), and one intake fan. The northbridge HS runs very very warm, much
warmer than on the Intel board. That's a clue to me. I'm pretty certain
that it's either the AI bios is doing something to the hardware in these
boards, but I'm not an engineer so I can't say for sure. I just know that
these problems started occuring when I noticed the "AI" "features" on the
box/bios, and when I noticed the "made in China" stickers on them.

Remember, I said that the systems that failed were used heavily. Huge tiff
files were manipulated in AutoCAD so these systems were pushed to their
limits before they failed. If you don't push your system really hard every
day, then I don't expect as many failures to occur. I think that Asus just
hasn't pushed their system's QA hard enough and these boards may/will fail
prematurely if used in a tough computing environment. As I stated before,
the other 20 machines are running Asus boards that were made in Taiwan and
built about 1 to 2 years ago and none have failed.

Btw, the A/C in the bldg is cold enough that the many of the employees have
to wear sweaters. These boards are flawed, and I just wanted to hear of
similar problems if they exist. I thought it may have been a bad batch of
boards, but this is impossible due to boards that were RMA'd or purchased
other places.

Btw, each of these systems was running 2GB of DDR400 Kingston memory.

-Steve

 

[Paul]

In the past 3 months I have seen 5 Asus mobos die. In the 10 years before
then I have only seen ONE fail. All of the boards were either the P4P800-SE
(3), the P4P800 Deluxe (2), or the newer P5GD2 Deluxe (1) mobos. All,
except one, are used for AutoCAD workstations and use ATI 9600 or 9800 video
cards. At first I thought that the problem must have been a bad power
supply, then a bad video card, then a bad hard drive...then memory. Now, I
realize that these boards have serious problems. First, I've noticed a
couple of things about all of the boards that did not apply to all of the
other Asus boards that I've purchase/installed over the years (about 100 or
so).

1) The newer boards all use the "AI" bios and ALL of them seem to run very
hot
2) The newer boards are no longer made in Taiwan, but in China

Now, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that these boards have failed
when being used heavily. That is, they are processing huge data files in
AutoCAD and/or gaming. My gut tells me that perhaps the switching voltage
regulators are failing, or something else is overheating and failing. I'm
certain that it is an overheating type of issue due to the way the boards
are dying. They all usually lock up after being run for a while...then they
simply refuse to boot when the power button is pushed.

I have RMA'd boards until I'm sick and now have decided to go with Intel
boards due to their build quality since these are mission-critical machines.

My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with Asus
boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and while it works,
it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot leaving me with a blank
screen. Keep in mind that these are 4 different computers that I've
referred to, and all use high-quality Sparkle or Antec power supplies and
high-end memory as well as other good components. The ONLY similarity in all
of them is that they are using ASUS mainboards.

One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it immediately
ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and that's been 6 months
ago.

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've been
using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.

Thanks for listening....

-Steve

Finding trends in motherboard failures, as end users, is a
difficult process. I only know of one serious problem that
a fair number of user have experienced.

There is a known problem with Asus P4P/P4C boards caused by the
ICH5 Southbridge and the USB ports. It seems like a little ESD into
a USB port, causes the Southbridge to go into latchup. Latchup is
a condition, where a phantom PNPN junction forms from rail to rail
inside the chip. The end result is meltdown (excessive current flow
makes the chip burning hot). Here is an article and a picture of a
typical victim. See if the ICH5(R) on your P4P boards
are the parts that failed, and compare the appearance of your
Southbridge to the picture in the second link. (Taking high res
photos of the motherboard you are RMAing, might allow to you to
check later for issues that can be identified visually.)

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/FAQ/FAQ_456.htm
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84122&highlight=usb+port

This problem is not restricted to Asus boards. And in one reported
case, the failure happened on a reboot. As there are no explanations
on the web, I'm going to have to assume this is an Intel chip
problem. The giga-byte warning page is the only public admission of
a problem that I've seen (and thank goodness someone posted the link).

I'd be more interested in what failed on the P5GD2, as there have
been no reports of failures on ICH6(R). And the funny thing about
the ICH5(R) problems, is that they happened quite a while after the
introduction of the board, implying the problem just might be
related in some way to "power on hours".

Regarding the Intel board thing, Intel doesn't actually make the
boards themselves. They contract out the motherboard manufacturing,
and at one point, you guessed it, Asus was making the boards
I'm not sure that is still true of this date - it could be the latest
contract was let with someone else. (And the design authority, the
schematic capture, could be done in Folsom, rather than by Asus.)

As for the China bashing, do you really have a choice these days ?
I'm sure any production manager who wasn't manufacturing in China,
would be fired on the spot. It is all about the nickels and dimes,
after all.

High thermal, as such, does not guarantee a premature death for
hardware. Consider the lowly laptop, for example, which has to
endure very poor airflow, and restricted access to the outside
world. They seem to work OK.

High heat is bad for electrolytic capacitors. If your power
supply does not have a high enough fan speed to keep its innards
cooled, that will mean an early failure of the power supply. If
you look at the recommended temperature/humidity curves for disk
drives, you would realize the only real reason for cooling a
computer, is for the disk drives. The silicon on the motherboard
can take a lot more temperature rise than the disks can.

For the machines that haven't yet failed. start an Autocad job,
take the side off the computer, use an antistatic strap on one
arm, then probe the board with your fingers, looking for hot
components. In other words, do some more detective work, to see
if there is anything abnormal about your gear. A P4 system should
really have at least one fan in the front (pulling air in), and
one fan (separate from the PSU fan) on the rear of the computer.
If the only fan on your computers, is the PSU fan, then yes,
you are torturing your machines.

A 7 to 10C temperature rise inside the case, is a reasonable level
of heating for a computer case. If the outside air is 25C, then
the case air can rise to 32C to 35C. On one computer I have here
(the one with the P4 in it), I had to remove some plastic grillwork
on my computer case, to get enough air flow through the case. To
check the temperatures, you can use Asus Probe to make some
measurements. The side should be on the case, as if the fans are
working properly, the best cooling should be with the side of the
case put in place.

HTH,
Paul

 

[BP]

No, the motherboard gets hot. Away from the processor. I noticed it. The guy
at the computer shop that switched out the board for me while I was at work
mentioned it (unsolicited). The board gets hot. Hot enough to burn your
fingers.

 

[PL]

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've been
using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.

Sorry tp hi-jack the OP's post.

I've been watching these threads for some time now - and a lot of them
there are too. What do these problems mean for the end-user? Do we
simply sit tight and keep fingers crossed? Surely not.

If one of the large food retailers or motor manufacturers, for example,
discovered a faulty product, which constituted a risk to health and
safety, there would be an immediate product recall. Is the ASUS
motherboard an exception to the rule then?

Has anyone had any success RMAing a non-faulty board, simply because of
it's poor reputation?

 

[Steve]

Thanks Paul, this was a very informative post. I know that on one occasion
that the entire USB controller did seem to die, but the mobo worked
otherwise. I had to RMA the board for the USB controller problem, but the
board failed a month later completely...again. I wonder if this southbridge
problem could kill the entire board? From the one picture it appears
possible, but I've checked the southbridge controllers on every RMA because
I remember reading where they could get extremely hot on occasion but I
wasn't sure why. I didn't find any sign of burning or discoloring however.
The northbridge seems to run hot on these boards as well, but I haven't
checked the temp on the southbridge. One thing that your post made me
wonder was that in each of these configurations I was using a RAID 1 setup
using the ICH5R chip with dual Seagate drives. I wonder if the failures are
due to the RAID 1 possibly combined with the USB problem?..or due to the
RAID 1.

Thanks again for your post, plenty of airflow in these systems so whatever
is happening isn't normal.

I wasn't even aware of the USB problem until your post.

-Steve

In the past 3 months I have seen 5 Asus mobos die. In the 10 years before
then I have only seen ONE fail. All of the boards were either the P4P800-SE
(3), the P4P800 Deluxe (2), or the newer P5GD2 Deluxe (1) mobos. All,
except one, are used for AutoCAD workstations and use ATI 9600 or 9800 video
cards. At first I thought that the problem must have been a bad power
supply, then a bad video card, then a bad hard drive...then memory. Now, I
realize that these boards have serious problems. First, I've noticed a
couple of things about all of the boards that did not apply to all of the
other Asus boards that I've purchase/installed over the years (about 100 or
so).

1) The newer boards all use the "AI" bios and ALL of them seem to run very
hot
2) The newer boards are no longer made in Taiwan, but in China

Now, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that these boards have failed
when being used heavily. That is, they are processing huge data files in
AutoCAD and/or gaming. My gut tells me that perhaps the switching voltage
regulators are failing, or something else is overheating and failing. I'm
certain that it is an overheating type of issue due to the way the boards
are dying. They all usually lock up after being run for a while...then they
simply refuse to boot when the power button is pushed.

I have RMA'd boards until I'm sick and now have decided to go with Intel
boards due to their build quality since these are mission-critical machines.

My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with Asus
boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and while it works,
it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot leaving me with a blank
screen. Keep in mind that these are 4 different computers that I've
referred to, and all use high-quality Sparkle or Antec power supplies and
high-end memory as well as other good components. The ONLY similarity in all
of them is that they are using ASUS mainboards.

One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it immediately
ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and that's been 6 months
ago.

I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've been
using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.

Thanks for listening....

-Steve

Finding trends in motherboard failures, as end users, is a
difficult process. I only know of one serious problem that
a fair number of user have experienced.

There is a known problem with Asus P4P/P4C boards caused by the
ICH5 Southbridge and the USB ports. It seems like a little ESD into
a USB port, causes the Southbridge to go into latchup. Latchup is
a condition, where a phantom PNPN junction forms from rail to rail
inside the chip. The end result is meltdown (excessive current flow
makes the chip burning hot). Here is an article and a picture of a
typical victim. See if the ICH5(R) on your P4P boards
are the parts that failed, and compare the appearance of your
Southbridge to the picture in the second link. (Taking high res
photos of the motherboard you are RMAing, might allow to you to
check later for issues that can be identified visually.)

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/FAQ/FAQ_456.htm
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84122&highlight=usb+port

This problem is not restricted to Asus boards. And in one reported
case, the failure happened on a reboot. As there are no explanations
on the web, I'm going to have to assume this is an Intel chip
problem. The giga-byte warning page is the only public admission of
a problem that I've seen (and thank goodness someone posted the link).

I'd be more interested in what failed on the P5GD2, as there have
been no reports of failures on ICH6(R). And the funny thing about
the ICH5(R) problems, is that they happened quite a while after the
introduction of the board, implying the problem just might be
related in some way to "power on hours".

Regarding the Intel board thing, Intel doesn't actually make the
boards themselves. They contract out the motherboard manufacturing,
and at one point, you guessed it, Asus was making the boards
I'm not sure that is still true of this date - it could be the latest
contract was let with someone else. (And the design authority, the
schematic capture, could be done in Folsom, rather than by Asus.)

As for the China bashing, do you really have a choice these days ?
I'm sure any production manager who wasn't manufacturing in China,
would be fired on the spot. It is all about the nickels and dimes,
after all.

High thermal, as such, does not guarantee a premature death for
hardware. Consider the lowly laptop, for example, which has to
endure very poor airflow, and restricted access to the outside
world. They seem to work OK.

High heat is bad for electrolytic capacitors. If your power
supply does not have a high enough fan speed to keep its innards
cooled, that will mean an early failure of the power supply. If
you look at the recommended temperature/humidity curves for disk
drives, you would realize the only real reason for cooling a
computer, is for the disk drives. The silicon on the motherboard
can take a lot more temperature rise than the disks can.

For the machines that haven't yet failed. start an Autocad job,
take the side off the computer, use an antistatic strap on one
arm, then probe the board with your fingers, looking for hot
components. In other words, do some more detective work, to see
if there is anything abnormal about your gear. A P4 system should
really have at least one fan in the front (pulling air in), and
one fan (separate from the PSU fan) on the rear of the computer.
If the only fan on your computers, is the PSU fan, then yes,
you are torturing your machines.

A 7 to 10C temperature rise inside the case, is a reasonable level
of heating for a computer case. If the outside air is 25C, then
the case air can rise to 32C to 35C. On one computer I have here
(the one with the P4 in it), I had to remove some plastic grillwork
on my computer case, to get enough air flow through the case. To
check the temperatures, you can use Asus Probe to make some
measurements. The side should be on the case, as if the fans are
working properly, the best cooling should be with the side of the
case put in place.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Leythos]

A motherboard cannot run "hot". You were running P4 procs on those boards,
and the procs supported by those boards run at temps just below the temp at
the surface of the sun. I would surmise that your problems were related
directly to inadequate cooling. the ASUS boards you cited are very stable,
rock solid boards when implemented in a well cooled environment.

Actually, the motherboard can run HOT. The non-CPU parts, like the
Chipsets, RAM, regulators, even resistors, can all generate heat (and
do).

Many of the motherboard include head-sinks directly on the main chipset
LSI chip now.

 

[Paul]

Thanks Paul, this was a very informative post. I know that on one occasion
that the entire USB controller did seem to die, but the mobo worked
otherwise. I had to RMA the board for the USB controller problem, but the
board failed a month later completely...again. I wonder if this southbridge
problem could kill the entire board? From the one picture it appears
possible, but I've checked the southbridge controllers on every RMA because
I remember reading where they could get extremely hot on occasion but I
wasn't sure why. I didn't find any sign of burning or discoloring however.
The northbridge seems to run hot on these boards as well, but I haven't
checked the temp on the southbridge. One thing that your post made me
wonder was that in each of these configurations I was using a RAID 1 setup
using the ICH5R chip with dual Seagate drives. I wonder if the failures are
due to the RAID 1 possibly combined with the USB problem?..or due to the
RAID 1.

Thanks again for your post, plenty of airflow in these systems so whatever
is happening isn't normal.

I wasn't even aware of the USB problem until your post.

-Steve

I think one poster mentioned losing USB functionality, without the
chip being burned. If the bond wire (or gold button, if this is flip
chip) fails first, it is possible the USB I/O will just lose power,
without the rest of the chip being damaged. But there seem to be more
reports of board-killing meltdown of the Southbridge, then of just
the loss of USB functionality. (And, even if you use a PCI USB card
in each computer, to avoid the risk of ESD killing the motherboard
USB ports, I'm not even certain that will be enough to prevent all
failures.)

I own a P4C800-E Deluxe, with the ICH5R, so I cannot say I'm at all
happy about the situation. Asus does seem to be replacing the
Southbridge on the boards returned for RMA (and with the right
techniques and materials, a replacement like this can be done up
to three times, before the board is too beat up to be repaired).
But, I expect they are using the same mask revision chips from
Intel, to make the repair, and so another failure is also likely
to happen. The way the chip business works, is you don't spin
new versions of chips, unless there is volume to pay for the
respin, and the ICH5 family is at the end of its production life.
At $1 million max per respin, it takes a lot of chips to pay for
the NRE. The big question right now, is who is paying for the
replacement ICH5(R) chips.

The next question is, what will happen after the three year
warranty is up ? Will Asus refuse to repair them, or will we have to
go after them with a class action suit, to extend the warranty ?
Class action suits can be successful:

http://www.abitsettlement.com

And in the end, will playing "whack-a-mole" with class action
suits, improve the quality of the products offered ? Quality,
after all, is determined by industry competition - if all
competitors make crap, the manufacturers don't have to work
too hard.

As for chip power levels, a portion of chip power depends on the
amount of high speed I/O. Some of the low amplitude technologies
like PCI Express, SATA, USB2, and so on, are quite good on I/O
power. But the amount of high speed logic backing up those interfaces
inside the chip can also be an issue, and contribute more power
dissipation than the I/O.

In a classic two chip Northbridge/Southbridge pair, the number of
I/Os and their speed is such, that the Southbridge generally has
much lower power dissipation than the Northbridge. In the Intel
doc 25267301, the TDP for the ICH5 is listed as 2.4 watts. That
should be pretty easy to cool. For Northbridges, the 865G is likely
to be the worst, and the Intel 25251902 document lists

Intel 82865G GMCH (Integrated Graphics @ 266 MHz)
Dual-channel / 4 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 12.9 W
Dual-channel / 2 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 11.8 W
Single-channel / 2 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 10.0 W

That is getting warm enough, that a tall heatsink with some
airflow over it should be used. (And, that is one reason to
be careful in the selection of third party HSF for the CPU.
Asus may assume the "air spill pattern" of the Intel retail
cooling solution, and it is a good idea to check that a
third party solution blows down onto the motherboard strong
enough, to keep MOSFETs and other warmer components cool. If
the Northbridge has a fan on it, that is one less thing to
worry about.)

One trend you will notice on motherboards, is the power level
of processors is rising, but the number of phases used in the
Vcore circuit remain the same. At one time, a single phase of
a regulator only provided about 15 amps. That number has climbed
steadily. On a P5WD2, there is a four phase Vcore circuit, and
the 840XE dual core draws 130W. The datasheet for the 840
lists 125 amps maximum current, which is 30 amps per phase on
the four phase regulator. I bet even Intel doesn't use more
than four phases on their Vcore regulator circuit, so the
stress level is the same.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sSpec=SL8FK
ftp://download.intel.com/design/PentiumXE/datashts/30683101.pdf

(Picture of Intel D955XBK - it has four phases on Vcore, and more
substantial looking heatsinks than the Asus equivalent)
http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/bk/bk_photo.htm

The potentially most stressful part of a motherboard design,
is how the powering is done. On the P4P/P4C series, Asus made
extensive use of linear regulation (MOSFETs and quad op amps),
and I'm not too impressed by that. On my board, two transistors
run detectably warm (40-45C measured with a digital thermometer),
while the rest are OK. I notice on the P5WD2, there are now a
couple of switching regulators used, where we might have found
linear regulators. That is a good sign, as a switcher is more
efficient (more expensive), and better able to do the job. Mobo
manufacturers are very reluctant to use them, due to the cost.

I still see reasonably good engineering principles being used,
with corners being cut on the same old things they've always cut
corners on (power regulation). Only someone who distributes the
boards, and keeps records of return rates or warranty claims,
will have a good picture of whether there is an epidemic out
there. Considering the small number of postings made to this
group, I'd say there are a significant number of P4P/P4C failures
out there. That is because most people seem to suffer in silence.

Paul

 

[edavid3001]

I have a p4p800 revision 1 at my desk. No problems in the many months
I've had it. Running a 2.6Ghz and MX4000. VMWare pushes the CPU up
at times.

We have many p4p800 boards including SE and deluxe. By many, I mean we
probably have close to 100 of them. I don't have any way of scanning,
but that is about how many machines we've purchased since my machine
was built, and these all have p4p800's.

 

[Zorro]

I have a P4C800-E Deluxe with dead USB. All chips look ok.....'twas
wondering what the hey was going on. Now <sigh> I guess we know!

Thanks to all for posting.

z

 

[Steve]

I have the same board Paul...the P4C800-E Deluxe and have noticed some wierd
anomalies from time to time, especially when booting which makes me think
that this problems extends to the 875 northbridge as well. I wonder if
these problems have been fixed in the newer 915/925/945/955 chipsets?

That's very discouraging to hear about these problems and I think that Intel
owes it to it's customers for a fix, but I think you're right in that they
probably won't do anything.

I was going to install a separate PCI USB 2 card to get around the problem
but are you saying that doing that may not work? I will have to try it as
it's the only way to save my face since they use a portable notebook hard
drive on the front USB to dump/retrieve data. That is probably what has
been killing the boards...the increased current requirement for a portable
drive.

Thanks again Paul....I'm going to try and contact Intel about this and see
what they say. I don't want to start a class action lawsuit, but I will if
I have to.

-Steve

Thanks Paul, this was a very informative post. I know that on one occasion
that the entire USB controller did seem to die, but the mobo worked
otherwise. I had to RMA the board for the USB controller problem, but the
board failed a month later completely...again. I wonder if this southbridge
problem could kill the entire board? From the one picture it appears
possible, but I've checked the southbridge controllers on every RMA because
I remember reading where they could get extremely hot on occasion but I
wasn't sure why. I didn't find any sign of burning or discoloring however.
The northbridge seems to run hot on these boards as well, but I haven't
checked the temp on the southbridge. One thing that your post made me
wonder was that in each of these configurations I was using a RAID 1 setup
using the ICH5R chip with dual Seagate drives. I wonder if the failures are
due to the RAID 1 possibly combined with the USB problem?..or due to the
RAID 1.

Thanks again for your post, plenty of airflow in these systems so whatever
is happening isn't normal.

I wasn't even aware of the USB problem until your post.

-Steve

I think one poster mentioned losing USB functionality, without the
chip being burned. If the bond wire (or gold button, if this is flip
chip) fails first, it is possible the USB I/O will just lose power,
without the rest of the chip being damaged. But there seem to be more
reports of board-killing meltdown of the Southbridge, then of just
the loss of USB functionality. (And, even if you use a PCI USB card
in each computer, to avoid the risk of ESD killing the motherboard
USB ports, I'm not even certain that will be enough to prevent all
failures.)

I own a P4C800-E Deluxe, with the ICH5R, so I cannot say I'm at all
happy about the situation. Asus does seem to be replacing the
Southbridge on the boards returned for RMA (and with the right
techniques and materials, a replacement like this can be done up
to three times, before the board is too beat up to be repaired).
But, I expect they are using the same mask revision chips from
Intel, to make the repair, and so another failure is also likely
to happen. The way the chip business works, is you don't spin
new versions of chips, unless there is volume to pay for the
respin, and the ICH5 family is at the end of its production life.
At $1 million max per respin, it takes a lot of chips to pay for
the NRE. The big question right now, is who is paying for the
replacement ICH5(R) chips.

The next question is, what will happen after the three year
warranty is up ? Will Asus refuse to repair them, or will we have to
go after them with a class action suit, to extend the warranty ?
Class action suits can be successful:

http://www.abitsettlement.com

And in the end, will playing "whack-a-mole" with class action
suits, improve the quality of the products offered ? Quality,
after all, is determined by industry competition - if all
competitors make crap, the manufacturers don't have to work
too hard.

As for chip power levels, a portion of chip power depends on the
amount of high speed I/O. Some of the low amplitude technologies
like PCI Express, SATA, USB2, and so on, are quite good on I/O
power. But the amount of high speed logic backing up those interfaces
inside the chip can also be an issue, and contribute more power
dissipation than the I/O.

In a classic two chip Northbridge/Southbridge pair, the number of
I/Os and their speed is such, that the Southbridge generally has
much lower power dissipation than the Northbridge. In the Intel
doc 25267301, the TDP for the ICH5 is listed as 2.4 watts. That
should be pretty easy to cool. For Northbridges, the 865G is likely
to be the worst, and the Intel 25251902 document lists

Intel 82865G GMCH (Integrated Graphics @ 266 MHz)
Dual-channel / 4 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 12.9 W
Dual-channel / 2 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 11.8 W
Single-channel / 2 DIMMs / 400 MHz DDR / 800 MHz FSB 10.0 W

That is getting warm enough, that a tall heatsink with some
airflow over it should be used. (And, that is one reason to
be careful in the selection of third party HSF for the CPU.
Asus may assume the "air spill pattern" of the Intel retail
cooling solution, and it is a good idea to check that a
third party solution blows down onto the motherboard strong
enough, to keep MOSFETs and other warmer components cool. If
the Northbridge has a fan on it, that is one less thing to
worry about.)

One trend you will notice on motherboards, is the power level
of processors is rising, but the number of phases used in the
Vcore circuit remain the same. At one time, a single phase of
a regulator only provided about 15 amps. That number has climbed
steadily. On a P5WD2, there is a four phase Vcore circuit, and
the 840XE dual core draws 130W. The datasheet for the 840
lists 125 amps maximum current, which is 30 amps per phase on
the four phase regulator. I bet even Intel doesn't use more
than four phases on their Vcore regulator circuit, so the
stress level is the same.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sSpec=SL8FK
ftp://download.intel.com/design/PentiumXE/datashts/30683101.pdf

(Picture of Intel D955XBK - it has four phases on Vcore, and more
substantial looking heatsinks than the Asus equivalent)
http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/bk/bk_photo.htm

The potentially most stressful part of a motherboard design,
is how the powering is done. On the P4P/P4C series, Asus made
extensive use of linear regulation (MOSFETs and quad op amps),
and I'm not too impressed by that. On my board, two transistors
run detectably warm (40-45C measured with a digital thermometer),
while the rest are OK. I notice on the P5WD2, there are now a
couple of switching regulators used, where we might have found
linear regulators. That is a good sign, as a switcher is more
efficient (more expensive), and better able to do the job. Mobo
manufacturers are very reluctant to use them, due to the cost.

I still see reasonably good engineering principles being used,
with corners being cut on the same old things they've always cut
corners on (power regulation). Only someone who distributes the
boards, and keeps records of return rates or warranty claims,
will have a good picture of whether there is an epidemic out
there. Considering the small number of postings made to this
group, I'd say there are a significant number of P4P/P4C failures
out there. That is because most people seem to suffer in silence.

Paul

 

[Daniel Mandic]

I have a p4p800 revision 1 at my desk. No problems in the many months
I've had it. Running a 2.6Ghz and MX4000. VMWare pushes the CPU up
at times.

5 years and more of unpaused running a Business PC, administrated by
me. This is not possible with a P4 System. No ACPI or APM activated.
Used for every purpose. Internet, Office, Gaming, FAX and more...

It was (now they changed the whole system) a P54/133 and then a P55/200
with Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Office 95, 97, XP (ascending order
).... the rest of the system was always the same. The 3.6 IBM
Platter did very well. The system run for years, without turning off.
And probably it would still run....

ASUS, off course. And a big 256MB of EDO RAM.



Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[Paul]

I have the same board Paul...the P4C800-E Deluxe and have noticed some wierd
anomalies from time to time, especially when booting which makes me think
that this problems extends to the 875 northbridge as well. I wonder if
these problems have been fixed in the newer 915/925/945/955 chipsets?

That's very discouraging to hear about these problems and I think that Intel
owes it to it's customers for a fix, but I think you're right in that they
probably won't do anything.

I was going to install a separate PCI USB 2 card to get around the problem
but are you saying that doing that may not work? I will have to try it as
it's the only way to save my face since they use a portable notebook hard
drive on the front USB to dump/retrieve data. That is probably what has
been killing the boards...the increased current requirement for a portable
drive.

Thanks again Paul....I'm going to try and contact Intel about this and see
what they say. I don't want to start a class action lawsuit, but I will if
I have to.

-Steve

My P4C800-E has been fine so far. I'm just concerned with the
long term prognosis, and what happens after the warranty has
expired.

I've seen no reports about a problem with ICH6 or ICH7. Those
are the Southbridges for the chipsets you listed above.

With regard to the PCI USB card - yes, it does help. It eliminates
one source of stimulus for the problem. What I am concerned about,
is the one reported case, where the Southbridge "blew" right after
the computer was rebooted. In that case, there probably was not
an electrostatic discharge happening at the time, so in that one
case, I'm assuming that a PCI USB card would not have prevented
that person from losing the use of their board. Again, I'm still
waiting for more reports of "ESD-free" failure cases, where
the Southbridge blew, even though no USB devices were plugged or
unplugged just before it happened. So, by all means, install
a PCI USB 2.0 card - from a failure probability perspective, it
will be helping you. I just cannot guarantee that it might not
happen anyway, say during a simple reboot. I mean, judging by
the repeatability of the burn marks on the Southbridge, I'm
pretty certain of the phenomenon doing this - what I cannot
guarantee, is that the USB interface on the Southbridge won't
fail with virtually no stimulus fed to it (just the bias from
the normal supply voltages).

Don't expect staff at Intel to comment on your observation.
Staff in big companies have a vested interest in keeping their
mouths shut, especially in tech support, where all the calls
could be "recorded for monitoring purposes". Now, if you could
take an Intel staff member out for a few beers, they might tell
you something (like how much they like free beer).

Paul

 

[Leythos]

My P4C800-E has been fine so far. I'm just concerned with the
long term prognosis, and what happens after the warranty has
expired.

It's been my experience that most boards last longer than their warranty
and that by the time you need a repair, that the technology is so far
beyond what you want to repair, that it's a better investment to just
buy a new board and chips to get the better performance.